Destroyed
by MarcoLover16
Summary: How could a man so gentle and kind do the things he did? 'When's he coming back? ', she asks. How do I answer that? So many questions and so many memories are flowing through my mind that I'm finding it hard to think. It's been a week since I lost them.


Author's Note: Just a little thing I wrote due to a whole day to myself! This hasn't happened in months, so I am making good use of it. Enjoy. Oh, and it may sound a tad bit slashy, but it's not really meant to be. The whole mention of my Sirius being gay thing really doesn't affect the story AT all.

He always had his own way of doing things, and his thought process always surprised me.

"_She's beautiful, Remus. You should see her."_

_"I trust you," I said, grinning._

_Sirius had only just returned to James' house from the hospital, where he had, for the first time, held his cousin's newborn baby in his arms. He hadn't stopped talking about it from the moment he walked in._

_"I mean it. I almost cried, but…yeah, of course, I didn't."_

_James laughed. "We get it, okay?"_

_Sirius had never looked so happy, though, and James, Peter, and I all agreed that it was worth listening to his blabbering to see him smile like that. _

_"Hey, James, I have an idea!"_

_James raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"_

_"You and Lily have a child, and __**we**__ get married…and like that—" he snapped—"it'll be mine too."_

_I shook my head slowly. "That doesn't make any sense."_

_"Agreed," said James._

_"You could always just steal their kid," suggested Peter jokingly._

_"Nah, that wouldn't work," said Sirius, looking surprisingly solemn. "We'll just have to get married."_

Yeah, his thought process never ceased to surprise me.

I threw another framed picture against the wall angrily, not so shocked to feel tears running down my face. I ignored them, too hurt to care.

I was so damn sick of that look. You know that one I'm talking about, the one where you walk down the street, and everyone—everyone just seems to say, "Remus, I'm sorry that everyone abandoned you. It really sucks to be you," with their eyes.

Sirius was always strong, and most importantly, he always knew how to make me feel better about myself.

_I was bored of reading (crazy, I know), and I was not looking forward to another three hours alone in my hospital bed. Madam Pomfrey came in from time to time to see how I was feeling, but I didn't answer her. I could not believe I let them find out. I could not believe that they knew._

_I was surprised to see Sirius walk in with a grim look on his face._

_"Remus," he said softly._

_"H—hi," I said weakly._

_I was beginning to regret all the words I had screamed at him earlier. I wished so strongly that this wasn't happening. Maybe he wasn't going to abandon me. Maybe I shouldn't have told him to._

_"All right, let's get this over with," said Sirius, still looking grim._

_"What?" I asked uneasily, sitting up straighter._

_Sirius took a seat on the end of my bed. "Well, the friendship obviously has to end, Rem."_

_I felt my heart plunge into the bottom of my stomach. I had suspected it, but a part of me…_

_"Oh," I said._

_Sirius whipped his head around so fast that I thought it would snap. He looked angry by my simple two- letter word._

_"Do you—" he began, but shook his head, going on with what he felt had to be said._

_"You know how I hate werewolves."_

_"I…do?"_

_I didn't actually know that. I mean, I had assumed it, of course, because no one actually __likes __them, but I had hoped…_

_"Of course," said Sirius. "They are a very different kind of people, after all."_

_This did not sound like Sirius at all. The Sirius I knew didn't mind people who were different…right?_

_I felt my chest tightening at the thought of losing the only people I had ever cared about._

_"Just like the damn mudbloods," he said._

_My shock took over my pain. I had never heard Sirius use that word, and it sounded absolutely disgusting coming from his lips._

_"What…?" I asked slowly. This wasn't making any sense._

_Sirius looked back at me, as if he expected me to understand what he was saying, and I did. He was ending it…but the look he was giving me clearly showed that I wasn't getting it._

_"And being friends with a half-breed would obviously make my family upset," said Sirius, "and you know how much I care about their feelings."_

_Now that made absolutely no sense. I knew something was wrong._

_ "And those damn faggots are on that list as well…"_

_Sirius __**was**__ gay. What the hell was he on about?_

_A moment passed where neither one of us said anything. Finally, Sirius lost it. He stood up from the bed, shouting, "Do you honestly think I'm that shallow? What kind of a person do you think I am?"_

_I laughed softly. I somehow didn't think that was the reaction Sirius wanted me to have, but I couldn't help it. Everything I thought Sirius would do to me seemed so ridiculous now._

_"Werewolves do have a reputation…" _

_Sirius smiled, and I was so glad to see it. "So do Blacks. But that doesn't matter. All that matters is we trust each other, okay? Don't hide anything from me…or the others."_

_Remus nodded. Sirius had never given him any reason not to trust him._

I continued destroying the flat. I had to say, I was enjoying it in a sadistic kind of way. Screaming out random words that he had said to me, crying, throwing his furniture, his pictures of us—all of us—together. It was the first thing that had made me feel alive in days.

I went through a period of a week, to be exact, where everything seemed to be happening far away, and I wasn't there, so I didn't have to feel any pain. I was quiet, didn't cry, and didn't feel anything. Then, after the week was up, it hit me. When it hit, it hit like a ton of bricks hurtled at my chest, and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't eat. I couldn't think about anything but James, Lily, Sirius, and Peter.

I had never been so angry with a person in my life, but somehow all of the good memories were replaying over and over again in my mind. I did not WANT to see them, to remember him, but the memories wouldn't go away.

Trouble wasn't scary or exciting anymore. The thought of robbing (or attempting to rob) Gringotts even came to my mind…I just wanted some kind of a rush, something that would make me feel like living another day, but then I realized, without James and Sirius, I probably would never be able to get through the front door.

I furiously rubbed my eyes, shaking with the force of my sobs. I officially hated crying.

_"Is everything okay?" I asked tentatively. _

_I had never seen Sirius cry before, and I had to admit that it was disconcerting._

_Sirius rolled over to his other side. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I'm all right."_

_Even though it was obvious to me that he was lying, and that he just wished I would go back downstairs with the others, I nodded. "Okay," I said. "Good."_

_"It is," Sirius answered, sniffling._

_"Do you want to tell me what happened?" I asked. The question had been burning in the back of my throat since the minute he had buried himself in the empty bathtub._

_"Umm…"_

_Sirius seemed to realize he couldn't look more pathetic if he tried. He picked himself up, with great difficulty, and stepped out of the bathtub. I noticed that his hand was bruised, possibly from banging it into walls, the way he often did when he was in a rage._

_He cleared his throat. "Well, I guess you'll find out anyway."_

_I waited patiently for him to stop looking around the room as a method of stalling._

_"My dad died."_

_"Oh," I said, surprised._

_Sirius nodded. "Yeah, it's all right."_

_"I'm so—"_

_"I'm not," said Sirius, shaking his head. "I'm not sorry, so don't say you are."_

_I couldn't possibly imagine how Sirius must have been feeling. I wasn't naïve enough to believe that Sirius could get over all the pain his dad had caused him in such a short amount of time. I wasn't stupid enough to think that he was well loved by his father. I wasn't even sure why he was crying, but I couldn't imagine the confusion and pain he must have been feeling._

_Unsurely, I held my arms out to hug him, and he accepted the gesture._

_"I hate him," Sirius whispered. "I hated him so much, and yet…"_

_"I know," I said, even though I didn't. Not at all._

_"He hurt me," Sirius went on. "He made me scream out in pain for his own pleasure, his own enjoyment. It didn't matter whether it was with wands or just plain 'muggle style,' as he liked to call it. It was just fun."_

_"I know."_

_Sirius knew I was aware of all of this. We had pulled it out of him before, but I guess he just needed someone to talk to. I guess he just needed to get his feelings out there in the open in some way._

_"Then why the hell am I crying?" he asked._

_I didn't know how to answer that._

_"Maybe…you wanted him to love you. Maybe you want to cry the way James would about his own father."_

_Unfortunately, Sirius' crying got even worse when I said that._

The memories were coming now, one after another, and I had no way to make them stop. How could I have spent eleven years with a boy thinking he was one person, when he was actually another? How could I have been so stupid?

But a part of me said that I couldn't have been that stupid. No. Sirius couldn't have done this. We were his life, his whole damn life.

The evidence. How can you explain the evidence?

There is no other way to explain it. Sirius had to have done it.

But why?

The questions, like the memories, kept piling up until I had to sit down against the fireplace, my head in my hands, crying.

"Remus?"

It took all the strength I had to lift my head up when my name was called softly.

There she was: Andromeda Tonks, in all her beauty.

She looked around the room, eyeing every piece of glass I had thrown, every frame I had broken, and every picture I had torn, and she smiled sadly.

"Come on, honey," she said, as if I were a young child. "Let me take you home."

I didn't get up. "No," I say. And there I am, acting like a young child, feeling like a young child. I can't bring myself to accept the hand of cards I've been dealt. Andromeda was patient, however. She was always patient.

"Come on."

"I don't have a home," I say honestly.

And that's the first time it really hit me. I didn't have a home any longer. I had been sleeping in Sirius' spare room since about a month after I graduated Hogwarts. He'd had plenty of money still saved up from when he was a kid, plus a nice bonus from a caring uncle (who had been then immediately blown off the family tree), which gave him what he needed to find a place and keep it. He was also working at the ministry while he trained to be an Auror.

I, as a werewolf, wasn't finding much work for myself, and I had too much pride to go back and live with my mother. She would, of course, be happy to take me in if absolutely necessary, but living with Sirius made me feel much more independent. Besides, with him working all the time, and both of us in separate training, we hardly saw each other until dinner, and even then we usually went over to James' or Lily's. (After they married, that little part became much easier.) Sirius never once made me feel as if I were an intruder. After all, Sirius had spent most of his life mooching off James' family.

Now, however, I had nowhere to go.

"You'll come to my house tonight," said Andromeda.

"No…really—I—"

Andromeda raised her eyebrow threateningly.

"Okay," I said, not sure what else there was to do.

Andromeda walked further into the room, taking long deep breaths as she did so. I was selfish to not think about how much pain she must have been in herself. I was having a hard time thinking about anyone but myself.

When we got out of the building, I had to squint in order to see. I had kept myself in the dark flat for almost a week, and I had grown rather accustomed to it.

"What happened?" I asked Andromeda, knowing very well that she didn't have all the answers. I just needed to ask.

"Something went wrong," she said simply. There wasn't much else she could have said about the situation.

After a fair bit of walking and a ride on the bus (Sirius' favorite part of living so close to the muggles), we arrived at Andromeda's home. It was large, but not anything to be envious of.

"Thank you," I said.

"Let's go in."

I followed her into the house reluctantly, and I was surprised when a seven- year- old girl threw herself at me.

"Are you okay? How are you? Mum, I have—"

"Dora, calm down," said Andromeda, gently pulling her away. "You look dead tired, hon," she said. "I think it's time for bed."

_"Harry's dead, I think."_

_"Huh?"_

_Sirius looked down to see that one of the two in his lap had fallen asleep. "I guess the story wasn't very interesting," said Sirius, chuckling._

_"Harry, wake up," said the girl, irritated._

_"Dora, it's okay," said Sirius, handing Harry to his father. _

_"I'll just put him to bed then," James whispered, leaving the room._

_I peered up at them from behind my book. "Well, finish the story," I encouraged, seeing that the seven-year-old was getting restless._

"I'm not tired!" said Dora, stamping her foot.

"'Dromeda!"

Andromeda sighed, hearing her husband's voice reverberate through the house. "He's probably lost something again. Listen, I hate to ask, but could you—" she nudged her head toward her daughter, and I nodded. It was the least I could do, especially since Andromeda looked incredibly stressed out.

She left the room, smiling gratefully at me.

"Let's go to your room, okay?"

"Ooookay," she said, "but I'm not going to sleep, so don't even think about it." She pointed her finger at me warningly, and I couldn't help but laugh. I think it was the first time I had truly been amused in months.

"I'll just look at the room. Sound good?"

"Mhmm," she said, running her fingers through her blue hair.

I walked into her room, my friends still weighing heavily on my mind. It got worse as I looked at everything in there. She had so much of the stuff he had given her. Certainly, a seven-year-old wasn't going to throw out great gifts just because of the terrible things the man who had given her did…

…supposedly.

I still didn't know how he could have done it…but back to the point:

"So, here's the room. Let's leave."

I felt her hand in mine, trying to drag me out of the room, and I laughed again. "No," I said. "Come on. Sit."

She rolled her eyes but obliged, taking a seat on her bed, and I sat next to her.

"Not tired at all, eh?" I asked. I didn't know how to do this—deal with children, that is. I didn't understand them.

_"What's to get?"_

_"Oh, I don't know, Sirius. Taking care of children seems to be a lot harder for me than you."_

_The two of us had been asked to watch Harry for the evening while Lily and James were out. Actually, Sirius had been asked, but since I was there…I got dragged into it._

_Harry shrieked with delight when Sirius tickled him._

_"Okay, now for the most difficult part there is," said Sirius, turning to me._

_"What?" I asked quietly, taking advantage of Harry being distracted. _

_"Feeding him…"_

_I laughed, anxious to see this. Harry was a terrible eater._

No. I didn't want to think about him again.

I was brought back to the little girl when I heard her yawn. "Hmm," I said. "That's sounds to me like you're getting tired."

She glared. "No," she denied, frustrated with herself. "I am not."

_"Give up already!" I said, laughing. Three quarters of one of the cans of food had already been tossed on the floor by Harry._

_"Oh my gosh!" Sirius shouted._

_Harry now looked interested. "Oh my gosh," Sirius repeated. "Remus, do you see what I see?"_

_I looked over, perplexed. "No…"_

_Sirius raised both his eyebrows, making me feel that I was supposed to know. "Oh—oh, yes! I do!"_

_Sirius nodded. "Thought so."_

_"Harry, I see some magic beans in this…" He checked the label quickly—"squash food…thing."_

_Harry pulled the new can over to him, as the first can had to be discarded. Lily made sure that Sirius knew Harry had to eat at least half a can, and there was much more than half of the first can on her tiled floor._

_Harry shook his head. "No see."_

_"Well, of course you don't see," I said. I had to admit, I was getting into it. "You have to be at least seventeen. Magic beans can only be seen when you're over age."_

_Sirius nodded along with my words. "It's too bad."_

_Harry pouted. _

_"But they're still effective to you!"_

_Harry smiled, giggling at Sirius' cheerfulness. "Okay, but you have to take a bite, of course."_

_Harry nodded, no longer worried about eating. Sirius turned around quickly to me, eyeing the wand. I had had a lot of practice during Auror training with non-verbal spells._

_Sirius scooped up some of the squash onto the spoon, trying not to look distastefully at it, and he put it into Harry's open mouth._

_"Hmm…" said Sirius. "I think—Harry, I think everything's going blue!"_

_I concentrated on the spell, waved my wand, unnoticed by Harry, and the entire room turned to a bright shade of blue._

_Harry clapped, excited. "More!" he demanded._

_Within ten minutes, they had gotten Harry to eat the entire can._

_"What do you mean you're not good with kids?" Sirius asked me, smiling as he picked Harry up and out of the high chair._

_"Not as good as you," I mumbled, looking at the floor._

I felt something hit my shoulder, and I jumped, nearly waking the girl who had fallen asleep on me. I must have been daydreaming for a longer time than I thought. Her hair was now pink.

Slowly, I pulled myself away from her, but her eyes opened just as I was standing up.

The little girl groaned, opening her eyes sleepily. "Sirius always stays," she said.

"Wh—what?" I asked.

For some reason, hearing her say 'Sirius' made me feel even worse. Maybe it was because she said 'stays' instead of 'stayed.'

She sighed. "I don't like to be alone."

"Me neither," I said. I doubted she understood what I was truly referring to.

I must have been the biggest idiot in the world because, even after that, I started to walk out of the room, and I was called back again.

"He al_ways _stays," said Nymphadora.

"And…does what?" I asked, confused.

"I don't know," she said, getting under the covers. "He just stays…"

Well, it was kind of my job to play the part of Sirius for the night, so I couldn't leave.

I walked over and sat on the end of her bed, careful to avoid her feet under the covers.

"It's cold," I said. What else was there to say?

My company was apparently nothing compared to Sirius'. She looked rather bored, but she still refused to go to sleep. I tried to avoid looking at her.

"Are you crying?" she asked.

"No," I said. I think my voice may have cracked, and I cursed under my breath.

"Why are you sad?" she asked, sounding pained. "Did I sa—"

"No!"

She was always blaming herself. She was forever asking if something had been _her _fault.

Dora rolled over onto her side so that she didn't have to look at him any longer. She buried her face into the pillow, twisting her blanket between her fingers.

"When's he coming back?" she asked. "I miss him."

How do you tell a child that her favorite man in the world has been taken into Azkaban and would never be back again?

"I don't know," I said, swallowing painfully.

Evidently, when you're Remus Lupin, you don't tell her at all.

_"I've got to go."_

_"Why?" I asked, yawning. It was nearing eleven-thirty, and my ability to stay up late was nothing like it used to be._

_"Dora's sick," he said. "Cold."_

_"Oh…" I said, still not understanding. "And you're going to do what?"_

_"Visit her," he said, shrugging._

_"Isn't she sleeping?"_

_Sirius shrugged again, tying his shoes. "I want to be with her. It's not fun being sick."_

_I smiled. "Your generosity is unbelievable," I said it in a teasing way, of course, but I still wanted him to know I meant it._

_"I'll probably stay with her…the night…until the morning…or," he paused. "I'll come back when she's better."_

_"Okay."_

Nymphadora was quickly falling back to sleep, and I sighed, relieved. I didn't know how much longer I could go without crying, and I certainly wasn't going to do that in front of her.

"Where did he go?" she asked.

Her mother hadn't told her anything? Maybe I had overestimated Andromeda. Perhaps she wasn't handling this as well as I thought she was.

"He went away," I said. "He—he might not be coming back." I guess a half-truth was good enough. After all, I wasn't exactly a parent.

The little girl turned back around to me, looking distraught. "He doesn't want to see me anymore?" she asked.

"No," I said. "No, he does."

Did he? Did he even care?

"He doesn't miss me? He hasn't even wrote or anything!"

Crap. Did I do something wrong? Was—should I have said what I did? Should I have said less? More?

Instead of feeling the need to cry (like I did), she crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "He promised he'd come to my birthday."

"Oh," I said, trying to make up for the mistake I had made. "I'm sorry."

"He missed it last year," she said. "And he promised he would be here for this one, but now he's not going to come."

I nodded. "Maybe he will."

Yeah, totally and completely unlikely, but telling the half-truth earlier on hadn't done me too much good.

"Well…will you come?"

I felt very honored to be invited to one of her birthday parties, as I never had been before. "Sure. Sure, I will come."

I had already made a plan to leave town and run to a muggle city, a place where they couldn't figure out what I was because they didn't believe in such creatures. My plan was to find a decent job (or at least avoid my mother at all costs) and find a new life. I wasn't sure I wanted new friends. I was not ready to give my trust to anyone else, but time can change things, can't it?

All I knew was that I needed to get the hell away from the, "That's Remus Lupin over there," as well as the, "I feel so sorry for you, Remus!"

First, though, I would have to attend the child's birthday party, but afterwards, new name, new town, new life.

I made the mistake of looking over on Dora's night table to see a picture of Sirius with her in the rocking chair. I shook my head to block more memories from arising.

How could a man who had cried when his father, whom he hated, died… be a murderer? How could a man who hated lying beyond all things in the world… play us all? How could a man who had loved his best friends more than anything and everything combined…get rid of them in a second? And, how—why the hell would Sirius come at eleven-thirty at night to spend days with a sick child just because he _could…_and then abandon her?

It didn't make any sense.

He didn't get it.

He didn't do it.

No way.

I let her fall asleep before leaving the room, and when I was met with Andromeda Tonks in the doorway, she had tears in her own eyes. The two of us could no longer hold back, and we cried. We cried as if there wouldn't be a tomorrow, and hell, maybe there wouldn't.

If Sirius could do what he did, the sun could decide not to rise. It was just as likely.

Author's Note: Please, I'm nervous about this one. Review! Review! Review!


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